It’s not the first time we’ve seen O2 offer the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc at a fantastic price and hopefully it won’t be the last. O2 have put the Xperia Arc on their “flash sale” which takes place over weekends.

Unfortunately the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc isn’t free on their cheapest package like last time which includes 50 minutes. It is however available for free if you take out the next contract up which includes 100 minutes and is more in line with what most consumers are using any way. The 100 minute a month tariff is £15.50 a month but, you must take out a data bolt on with the plan which starts at £3 per month for 100MB. The bolt on is changable on a month to month basis, so you could upgrade it to 500MB for £6 or 1GB for £10. Likewise you can also downgrade the bolt on or remove it altogether.

The O2 flash sale ends August 1st. Also, if you purchase the handset through O2, you will get exclusive Cowboys and Aliens content, as well as two cinema tickets and the chance to win a VIP trip to Arizona.

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O2 have teamed up with Sony Ericsson and Paramount movies to include some exclusive content for the upcoming movie “Cowboys and Aliens” with Xperia Arc and Xperia Neo purchases. Not only will the handset come with exclusive content from the movie but, every one who purchases the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc or Neo will receive two tickets to see the movie at Odeon cinemas. To claim your tickets you need to enter your IMEI number online before September 30th and O2 will send you your tickets within 14 days.

Every one who purchases the handsets will also be entered into a prize draw, with the prize being a VIP trip to Arizona. This includes flights for two adults to Las Vega, 5 nights 4 star accommodation and 2 nights ranch accommodation in the Grand Canyon. For the exact details of the prize and exclusive content, as well as the terms and conditions visit O2′s website here.

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This weekend, O2 have various offers on various handsets, one of which is the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc. Normally the handset is available for free on the £24 a month plan, which includes 300 minutes, unlimited texts and 100MB of data. For this weekend though, O2 have a special offer on where you can pick up the Xperia Arc for free on their 50 minute and 100 minute a month plans, starting at as little as £13.50 a month. On their website, at first glance the cheapest plan appears to be £16.50 but, this includes 500MB of data, as well as 50 minutes and 250 texts. You can drop the data usage down to 100MB though and save £3 a month, making the price plan only £13.50 a month, perfect for light usage. Alternatively you can up the data to 1GB and the price plan becomes £20.50 a month. Head on over to the O2 website to take advantage of this weekend offer if you haven’t yet picked up an Xperia Arc.

It seems Sony Ericsson isn’t having too much luck with O2 in the UK. First O2 announced that they were delaying the Xperia Play as they found significant issues with the phone that hindered the user experience. At the time, there was no information on the Xperia Arc being delayed but, that also wasn’t released at the same time as other network carriers released the handset. Only in the past week or so have O2 made the Arc available to buy. Whether any of those orders were fulfilled or not however, remains to be seen.

Up until earlier today, the O2 store still said you could purchase the Xperia Arc and indicated that it was in stock, however O2 admitted that they didn’t have any stock in and were aware that the website did not reflect this. Instead of amending the site to show the handset as being out of stock or similar, the page for the Xperia Arc has been removed entirely. Upon browsing the O2 store, the Arc is listed on the first page but, following this link takes you to a “We’re sorry, but the phone you selected does not exist on the O2 shop” page and suggests looking for another phone, or that the page address may be wrong. Looking through phones available the Arc cannot be seen here either.

SE-Xperia also revealed that while talking to several stores, some said they may get stock in next week but, interestingly two of the stores said they wouldn’t have it for a few weeks, as further testing needed to be done on the handset. Some could assume the sales team got confused with the Play but, after the Arc being removed from the O2 site it seems that O2 could indeed be testing the Arc further.

Those who pre-ordered the Xperia Arc or Play on Vodafone will, unfortunately have to wait a bit longer till they get their hands on Sony Ericsson’s latest handsets it seems. Vodafone have announced that they are experiencing stock issues with both the Xperia Arc and Xperia Play. Sony Ericsson were unable to meet the demand for the devices due to freight issues and so they are working with Vodafone to ensure handsets are delivered as soon as possible. A specific timescale is as of yet unknown though.

Likewise, Three are also experiencing the same issues, with the Xperia Play at least. The earliest expected delivery date for the Xperia Play with Three is Friday 15th April, although this has already changed from April 8th.

O2 on the other hand, haven’t announced any problems with stock but, are delaying the handset. According to the O2 blog, while testing the handset, they’ve found several bugs in the software which affect the Xperia Play’s usability as both a gaming device and as a phone. O2 are the only network to have suggested there are problems with the software, leading many to believe it may be down to O2′s own firmware on top of the Sony Ericsson firmware.

Despite the handsets not being available through Vodafone or Three, many customers have managed to still acquire the Play or Arc  through third party retailers such as Phones4U or Carphone warehouse, who have some handsets in stock. The stock given to Phones4U and Carphone Warehouse is unbranded so for those who can’t wait to get their hands on Sony Ericsson’s next Xperia handsets, may be better off going through a third party retailer any way, as network branded handsets have had their problems in the past, specifically with Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X10 and it’s software updates.

While Sony Ericsson have confirmed that their gaming handset, the Xperia Play will be available in both black and white, most retailers are only showing the Xperia Play in black. In the UK we can confirm that if you are after the white version, the white Xperia Play is an exclusive to O2, so you’ll need to purchase the handset from them.

O2 haven’t provided any pricing information or tariff info, so it’s unknown whether O2 will be charging extra for the exclusive white model or not. This is unlikely but, is a possibility.

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One UK network has confirmed that they will be stocking the recently announced Xperia Arc by Sony Ericsson when it launches in the UK. O2 have added the handset to their line of coming soon range and lists an April release date. Pricing is currently unknown but, it’s likely to be free on contracts above £35 a month, lasting 24 months.

Hopefully O2 will release the handset unbranded, as many O2 users felt disappointed with the way O2 dealt with updates released from Sony Ericsson, including the Android 2.1 update on the X10. O2 themselves had to approve the update, which led to X10 owners with O2 branded handsets, the last to receive the Android 2.1 update in the UK. Or if they do decide to the Xperia Arc with their own firmware, they are much quicker to release any updates Sony Ericsson provide for the Arc.

According to the latest O2 catalogue, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 handset will be an O2 exclusive release in the UK market.

The X8 is advertised for sale in the October 2010 edition of the O2 sales brochure at a cost of £129.99 plus £10 airtime top-up charge on the network as a Pay as You Go handset. O2 have then gone on to claim that the X8 smartphone handset is “Only on O2″ which looks set to be a great exclusivity deal for the UK carrier as the Xperia X8 should prove very popular with consumers due to it’s fairly low price and it’s not too shabby list of specifications for such a low price.

O2 also advise in the catalogue that customers wishing to enter into a monthly contract for the X8 handset should enquire within O2 stores regarding the deals on offer.

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After much waiting and much complaining, O2 have now released the Xperia X10′s latest firmware update. The update can only be done via PC, by either using the Sony Ericsson Update Service or PC Companion. The download is 153.8MB.

The update will take O2 branded X10 owners straight from R2BA016 to R2BA026, missing out R2BA020 which many users assumed would be the one released. While some users will be happy with the choice, many others will wish O2 had stuck with the R2BA020 update. The R2BA020 build is said to be the only version which doesn’t seem to have the WiFi bug present. Unfortunately, R2BA026 brings this bug back. O2 users shouldn’t notice any difference though, as R2BA016 is also said to have this WiFi issue.

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Various readers have tried contacting O2 themselves about the update from Sony Ericsson. With Three finally releasing the update, this has put O2 UK as the last network to support the Sony Ericssons update which improves battery life and there still isn’t an timescale for how long users will have to wait. While looking to see if O2 customers had been made happy yet, I of course found they haven’t, well the UK ones haven’t anyway. Upon further inspection of the situation, it seems that both O2 Ireland and O2 Germany have approved and released the update for the phone, making the wait for O2 UK users seem even more ridiculous. One O2 user send the company a message via Twitter. Unfortunately, all they could say on the matter is that “a new software version will be appearing very soon on the SE site”. To confirm they were on the same wavelength, the user sent a reply asking them to confirm this was the Sony Ericsson update they were talking about and not the Android update. Unfortunately, they haven’t responded to that yet.

I’ve also tried contacting them and have just had a response back, saying it’ll be another week or two and again, to keep an eye on the Sony Ericsson site.